740.0011 European War 1939/14805: Telegram
The Chargé in France (Matthews) to the Secretary of State
[Received 4:47 p.m.]
1150. We have received the visit of an intelligent representative of the Foreign Office on the French Armistice delegation at Paris, who expressed the conviction that in the month of October the Germans will again exert pressure and in a much more insistent form to obtain concessions in French North Africa. The initial demand, he believes from his conversations in Paris, will be for landing rights at Bizerte and transit privileges through Tunisia, probably with the usual worthless German assurances that in such case Algeria and Morocco will not be affected. He went on to express the further belief, or fear, that the pressure will be such that the Marshal and his Government may yield. He sees, he says, only one way to forestall such collapse: Clear notice and public notice by the United States that at [Page 427] the first sign we would move to occupy Casablanca, Dakar or other positions on the coast of Africa, either alone or if jointly with the British, with emphasis that the initiative is ours. If the French Government and the French people, he said, become convinced that any yielding to Germany in Africa will mean a complete break with the United States and a definite naval and military move against French Africa, they may not dare to give way.
If the French Government and the French people, he continued, realize that concessions to the Germans in Africa will make that area a battleground of the future, that the pride of the French colonial empire will be destroyed by the ravages of war, they will at least pause for some hard thinking. It is he says just a question of pressure and counterpressure; and a firm attitude on our part will make French resistance to German demands much easier.
Such a threat might likewise, he went on, if the Germans believe we are serious, mean that Hitler will not insist: If they believe that we can and will move into African bases and will be thus brought openly into the war against them, they will hesitate. Furthermore he said the Germans know that occupation of African bases by the United States would mean the loss to them of the battle of the Atlantic; and there is in addition a real German dread of “encirclement” with a battle front running from the sands of the Sahara through Russia to the White Sea, and the United States as an active enemy. “They eagerly seek” he said “an open break between France and the United States, but they still strive to prevent your coining in against them.”
He went on to say that he did not know of course whether the state of American public opinion or our military situation would permit the adoption of such a policy and he strongly cautioned against any attempt “to bluff.” He emphasized that words are not enough to act as an effective deterrent: “The words of your President and Secretary of State are excellent but the only thing the Vichy Government understands is acts. It is all very well to argue that France will need American friendship at the peace conference but that may be a long way off and the only thing that interests our Government—and for that matter, to a great extent, the French people—is what is going to happen in the immediate future. It is only if the Government here is convinced that you have the force and will use it effectively that it will really listen to you.”
(The foregoing views are reported merely as coming from a responsible French official who has had much contact with the German authorities. As the Department is aware, there is division of opinion in Vichy as to the probability and extent of renewed German pressure for facilities in North Africa: The final attitude of the Marshal, of his [Page 428] Government and of General Weygand in the face of such pressure, if and when it materializes, is the all-important question mark of the day. Meanwhile the momentary “lull” in Vichy’s foreign relations continues.)
Repeated to Algiers.